'Terrible crime”': Neil Heywood was killed by Gu Kailai, the wife of a politician

The mother of murdered British businessman Neil Heywood today appealed to the Chinese authorities to provide compensation to help his children cope with the aftermath of the “terrible” crime.

Ann Heywood said the two children, aged eight and 12, had been left “without financial provision for the future” following Mr Heywood’s poisoning in Chongqing in November 2011.

The killing led to the downfall of the city’s Communist leader Bo Xilai after his wife Gu Kailai was named as a suspect. She has since been convicted of the murder and sentenced to life, while Bo is awaiting trial on charges of corruption, bribery and abuse of power.

Mrs Heywood said she had not commented previously about the killing to avoid causing “unnecessary embarrassment” to the Chinese authorities, but she now felt forced to speak out.

She said that despite the involvement of “prominent Chinese officials, including a member of the Communist Party’s politburo and a number of senior policemen” in the murder and the cover-up, the authorities in Beijing had failed to respond to requests for assistance.

“Circumstances now compel me to break my silence,” Mrs Heywood said. “Given the circumstances of Neil’s murder, I have been surprised and disappointed that, despite repeated discreet approaches to the Chinese authorities, there has been no substantive or practical response.

“I hope and trust that the leaders of this great nation, which Neil loved and respected, will now show decisiveness and compassion, so as to mitigate the consequences of a terrible crime and to enable my family finally to achieve some kind of closure to our ongoing nightmare.”

It is customary in China for a murderer to be ordered to pay compensation to the victim’s family. But Mr Heywood’s widow, Lulu, and their children, who are understood to still live in Beijing, have received nothing.

A source close to Lulu said that she had also been pushing for compensation, while a British embassy spokesman told the Reuters news agency that it had also passed on the family’s concerns about the lack of assistance.

“We’ve made the Chinese authorities, through the ministry of foreign affairs, aware of the family’s concerns on several occasions since the trial, most recently twice during July,” said the spokesman. Mr Heywood, 41, was murdered following a reported dispute with Bo Xilai, a candidate for China’s most senior leadership who had been a close friend and business associate.

The former Harrow pupil’s death was initially recorded as alcohol poisoning, but the murder was uncovered after Chongqing’s police chief fled to the US consulate and revealed the truth.

China’s government originally implicated Bo, 61, in the cover-up of the murder, but a legal indictment issued last month made no mention of that. His trial is likely to start this month.

The Chinese authorities have so far failed to respond to Mrs Heywood’s comments, which came in a statement to the Wall Street Journal.

At her trial last year, Gu Kailai admitted poisoning Mr Heywood. She said that she had acted after he allegedly threatened her son, Bo Guagua, when a business deal turned sour.